This is the third in a series of posts that will discuss a broad range of topics relating to "Hegemony: Philip of Macedon". This post will introduce the Peltast unit.

Peltasts are fast, mobile light infantry suited to rough terrain and irregular combat. They wear a helmet and carry the pelta, a small crescent shaped shield. Peltasts use javelins at range and melee with a short spear or dagger. As an auxiliary force in battle, peltasts can skirmish to disrupt enemy formations and threaten flanks.

Peltasts are one of the most versatile units in the game, taking over many of the functions of cavalry units in the rugged terrain of the Greek World. Peltasts are great on patrol or at reconnaissance against enemy lines-of-communication. Being both fast and relatively good at melee, makes peltasts the ideal unit for raids, whether by land or by amphibious landing. Be careful though, as peltasts can run into trouble when forced to melee hoplites or phalangites.

The Origin of Peltasts

Peltasts originated in Thrace as a simple all-round infantry unit, combining many of the features of spearmen and javelineers. The versatility of peltasts was a direct adaptation for combat in the rough terrain and forests of Thrace.

The terrain in Hegemony is heavily forested. To help the player easily distinguish passable terrain, the forests are generally sorted into two types. Coniferous forests are used solely to cover impassable mountainous terrain whereas deciduous forests may be navigated but with a speed penalty according to the troop type.

Peltasts will be one of the best units to use in forested terrain since they will suffer minimal movement/combat penalties. Missile units can fire out of forests with minimal penalties and have a greater defence against incoming missile fire making ambushes, as you suggested, a viable strategy.

For most units melee combat is largely unaffected by forests. The primary exception are phalangites and their 18ft sarrissas that are naturally difficult to use in forested terrrain. Phalangites will be discussed in greater detail by Jim in a subsequent post.

As far as fog is concerned, there will be a 3D fog overlayed on the terrain to indicate the viewing distance of your troops. Although most of the terrain of Greece was known to Philip at the time, unexplored areas of the map will be covered in an opaque fog until the player has moved units into the area.

The view distance will vary considerably between different unit types e.g., Peltasts will have much longer view range then Hoplites. A unit's viewing distance is also significantly affected by the terrain. For example units can see farther when standing on higher ground but shorted when looking into a forest.

Hope that answers your questions. As we stated before, much of this can change as we continue play testing so we welcome comments and ideas.

To some extent there is a penalty to firing long distances but since the units are always in large brigades the missile will usually hit someone else in the group.

The bigger factors affecting missile fire are formation and movement. Formations that are widely spaced will tend to take less damage from missile fire then tightly packed formations. Also, formations that are moving will naturally be harder to hit then those who are standing still; however, missile units will attempt to throw ahead of moving targets to compensate for this.

Although peltasts and hoplites won't be able to merge or intermingle as a single brigade, the brigades can be attached to each other and moved as a group. (The video shows brigades being linked into a group.)

A spear uses a fraction of the metal that a sword does, which is why early armies relied on the spear. Bronze was still used for small daggers and even iron was brittle and subject to breakage when used in the longer blades of swords. Damage and defense is per unit. Generally melee will start with spears and can switch to daggers/short swords in close. (By then the spears would often be broken.) Given the scale of the game, javelin and catapult ammo will probably be unlimited.

Generally we're trying to avoid factors that are outside of the player's control such as floods or severe weather since no one wants to lose because of a random event.

The spear was the most common weapon of the time as it was much cheaper and simpler than a sword. However, many of the units, including Hoplites, will drop their spear and pull out a short sword when in close combat.

In combat, each unit fights individually and internally maintains their own health; however, to keep the interface uncluttered we show the combined health of the total brigade.

Presently we are planning on having unlimited ammo since Hegemony is a continuous game and does not have a defined end of battle where units can reload. To compensate for this we do plan to reduce the damage taken from missile fire to what we believe is a more realistic level then many wargames.

Experience and morale will be for the entire brigade but both are divided by the number of units. This means that a large brigade does not get twice the experience because it can fight more enemies at once and an entire brigade will not rout just because a few of it's units are under fire.

We've been doing a lot of research. One of our goals is to be as accurate to history as we can be, while developing an enjoyable, yet not overly complicated gameplay system. I guess we'll find out how successful we've been after it's released.

We hope to get the testers back into it early in the fall.

It's hard to nail down a specific date, as we tend to make major changes whenever we see a compelling reason to do so.

e.g. In June, partly in response to comments and partly as a result of videos released by other games in development, we switched from morph to skeletal animation and cranked up the poly counts of our units from 150-250 to 1800-2000. This also lets us add in multiple LODs while maintaining our target release size at <100meg download, plus allows for a lot of extra animations. Rob has had to take a coding detour to add these features and Philippe has a mountain of extra work to do on the art side.

That said, I don't foresee any other major changes this late in development.

Our replacement system reflects the points that you make.

For practical as well as heroic reasons the Greeks put their best men on the front ranks, which was a natural fit for the approach of intermingling raw recruits with a cadre of veterans to bring them up to speed quickly. In game terms this means that our brigades maintain their experience when they take battle losses (reflecting the strength of the core of remaining veterans). Obviously, I don't want to reveal too many of the details prior to release, but will discuss the logistics of brigade management in a future post.

I hadn't thought of creating a suggested reading list, but it's a good idea, so I'll start putting something together for the site.